Currently on display at Bunker Hill Community College’s “Artists on The Stump — The Road to The White House 2012″ gallery, “The Truth” shows Obama with a crown of thorns on his head and arms outstretched. Seeing how it bears a striking resemblance to a certain well-known martyr, the piece has elicited strong criticism.

“The crucifixion of the president was meant metaphorically,” he said, according to the Grio. “My intent was not to compare him to Jesus.”

An interesting note about “The Truth” is that it was actually made in 2009. D’Antuono had plans to debut it in New York City’s Union Square until public resistance cancelled its debut. He says he received more than 4,000 angry e-mails after this attempt, calling his work “anything but Christian-like.”

“I always regretted cancelling my exhibit in New York because I feel my First Amendment rights should override someone’s hurt feelings,” D’Auntuono said about the cancellation. “We should celebrate the fact that we live in a country where we are given the freedom to express ourselves.”

D’Auntuono claims Bunker Hill’s political gallery has allowed him to fix what happened three years ago. Still, one prominent religious figure isn’t buying D’Auntuono’s explanations, though.

“What makes this display so interesting is the flat denial of truth by so many artists and academicians, as well as their irrepressible hostility to Christianity,” said Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights in a written statement. “Yet when it comes to their savior, President Obama, they not only pivot, they proselytize.”

Acknowledging D’Auntuono’s history as “a left-wing artist known for exploiting racial tensions (e.g, depicting George Zimmerman as a Klansman and Trayvon Martin as a generous child),” Donahue wrote that the artist “has succumbed to a new low” with his latest offering.

But D’Auntuono says the piece was meant to lampoon the conservative media’s “idea that liberals believe the president to literally be our savior.”